GOP Senators Turn to Boehner to Stop Recess Appointment

More than a dozen Republican senators are urging the House to block the Senate from going on recess to prevent President Barack Obama from using his recess appointment powers to make White House adviser Elizabeth Warren the director of the new consumer watchdog agency without Senate approval.

Elizabeth Warren, an adviser to President Obama, testifies at a hearing Tuesday. (Reuters/Jonathan Ernst)

The proposed procedural tactic is the latest example of Republican ire over the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a key plank of the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul that Congress approved despite objections from the financial industry and conservative Republicans. When the Senate, controlled by Democrats, wants to recess or adjourn, the Republican-controlled House must approve a resolution allowing the break.

“Given President Obama’s indifference to the Senate’s constitutional authority, and the American people’s right to scrutinize his appointees through regular order of advise and consent, we urge you to refuse to pass any resolution to allow the Senate to recess or adjourn for more than three days for the remainder of the president’s term,” the senators said in a letter to House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio).

A spokesman for Mr. Boehner said “the speaker is aware of the letter, and is concerned about recess appointments” and is working with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) “to examine the best options going forward.”

Republicans have sought to slash the consumer bureau’s funding and blunt the agency’s powers over the financial industry; the bureau will have authority over mortgages, credit cards and other financial products when it starts up this summer. Earlier this month, nearly all of the Senate’s Republicans vowed to block any nominee for the consumer protection agency unless the bureau’s governance structure and funding mechanism were overhauled.

That GOP pledge has made it more likely that the president will bypass the likely contentious Senate review process in order to install a director of the consumer bureau by its July 21 launch date.

The Republican senators’ letter makes clear that conservatives want to block the Senate from taking a scheduled week-long Memorial Day break in order to prevent the appointment of Ms. Warren, a Harvard law professor, or anyone else to head the agency.

In the letter, Sens. David Vitter (R., La.), Jim DeMint (R., S.C.) and others said the president is using recess appointments to circumvent the Senate and fill powerful positions “with individuals whose views are so outside the mainstream” that they could never win Senate approval.

They noted that in 2007, the Senate limited its recesses in an attempt to thwart President George W. Bush‘s recess appointment powers, and they urged Mr. Boehner to help them use the same procedural tactics to block Mr. Obama from circumventing the Senate nomination review process.

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